In philosophy He)bbes was the precursor of the mod- ern materialistic schools of Sensationalism and Positiv- ism. Professing to reject "ever\-thing hypothetical (of ail qualitatum nrni/tnruiii), he affected to confine himself to the comprehensible, or, in other words, to the phenom- ena e)f motion and sensation. He defines philosophy to be the knowledge, through correct reasoning, of phe- nomena or appearances from the causes presented by them, or, vice versa, the ascertaining of possible causes by means of known effects. Philosophy embraces as an object everi'boely that admits the representation of pro- duction and presents the phenomena of composition and
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decomposition. Taking the term Body in its widest extent, he divides its meaning into natural and political, and devotes to the consideration of the first his Philo- sophia Naturalis, comprehending the departments of logic, ontologj', metaphysics, physics, etc. ; and to that of the second his Philosophia C'ivilis, or Polity, compre- hending morals. All knowledge is derived from the senses; but our sensational representations are. nothing more than appearances within us, the effect of external objects operating on the brain, or setting in motion the vital spirits. Tliought is calculation (comj)Uta(io) , and implies addition and subtraction. Truth and falsehood consist ill the relations of the terms employed. We can become cognizant only of the finite ; the infinite cannot be imagined, much less known: the term does not con- vey any accurate Icnowledge, but belongs to a Being whom we can know only by means of faith. Conse- quently, religious doctrines do not come within the com- pass of philosophical discussion, but are determinable by the laws of religion itself. All, therefore, that Hobbes has left free to the contemplation of philosophy is the knowledge of our natural bodies (somatology), of the mind (psychology), and polity. His whole theory has reference to the external and objective, inasmuch as he derives all our emotions from the movements of the body, and describes the soul itself as something corpo- real, though of extreme tenuity." From these princi- ples no moral or i^eliyious theory can flow, except that of infidelity. Though none of Hobbes's writings are expressly levelled against Christianity, few authors have realh' done more to subvert the principles of mo- rality and religion. He makes self-love the fundamen- tal law of nature, and utility its end ; morality is noth- ing but utility, and the soul is not immortal. His v.Tit- ings gave rise to a very voluminous controversy. "The Philosopher of Malmesbury," says Dr. Warburton, "was the terror of the last age, as Tindall and Collins are of this. The press sweat with controversy, and everj' young churchman militant would try his arms in thun- dering on Hobbes's steel cap" (Dicine Leyation, ii, 9, Preface). His principal antagonists Avere Clarendon, in A brief View of the danyerous and pernicious Errors to Church and State in Mr. Hobbes's Book entitled Levia- than ; Cudworth, in his Eternal and immutable Morali- ty ; and bishop Cumberland, in his Latin work on the Laws of Nature. Bishop Bramhall's controversy with Hobbes has been noticed above. We may also mention archbishop Tenison's Creed of Mr. Hobbes examined, and Dr. Eachard's Dialoyues on Hobbes. Hobbes's whole works have been carefully re-edited by Sir William 3Iolesworth, the Latin under the title Opera Philosophi- cu quce Latine Scripsit W. Hobbes (Loud. 1839-45, 5 vols. 8vo) ; Enylish Works noio first collected (London, 1839, 4 vols. 8vo). See Enylish Cyclopcedia ; Tennemann, Man. Hist. Philos. § 324 ; Mackintosh, Ethiccd Philosophy, § 4 ; Mosheim. Ch. Hist. cent, xvii, § 22; Hallam, Lit. of Eu- rope, iii, 271; Leland, Deistical Writers, ch. ii; Morell, Modmi Ph;ii>si,iihy, pt. i, ch. i, § 1 ; Bayle, Gen. Diet. s. v.; Slii'iM, llUtiiry of Doctrines, vol. ii; British Quar- terly /,'. /■/- //•. \i, loo; Lewis, Hist, of Phil, ii, 226-235; Kriig, Hamhcijrterbuch d. philos. Wissensch. ii, 441-443 ; Leckey, Hist, of Rationalism (see Index); Hurst, Hist. of Rationalism, p. 114 sq. ; Christian Examiner, xxix, 320; Leidner, Philos. p. 270; Cudworth, Intell. Syst. ii; Farrar, Hist, of Free Thought, p. 121 sq. ; Dorner,'6'e*r/;. d. prof. Theol. ; Gass, Gesch. d. protest. Doymat. iii, 39, 322; Waterland, Works (see Index, vol. vi); Watson, Works ; Tennemann, Gesch. d. Philos. x ; Sigwart, Gesch. d. Philos. ii (see Index) ; Schrockh, Kirchen-Gesch. s. d. Reform.iii; Doderlein, LiV. (see Index); Westm. Revieio, April, 1867, p. 162; Contemp. Review, Feb. 1868, vol. iii; Bibliotheca Sacra, viii, 127.
Hobbhahn, Johann Wilhet.m, a German theolo- gian, was born at Ochsenberg INIarch 8, 1665 ; studied at the universities of Ulm, Strasburg. and Tubingen, and entered the ministry in 1690. In 1716 he was appointed superintendent over a number of chtu-ches, and pastor
at Knittlingen, where he died in 1727. Hobbhahn wrote, mainly under fictitious names, a number of ex- cellent polemics against the Romish Church and the Syncretists. Of these, his Obsieyende Wahrheit, and Apoloyet. Schauplatz d. triumphirenden Wahrheit, ?ig2M\st Eust. Eisenhut ; Histor. theoloy. Priifuny d. ram. Pries- ter- Weihe, against Handle ; and especially A nyetastete Junyfer-Ehe d. lutherischen Kirche, which gave him much trouble, and endangered his life, are considered the liest.— Jijcher, Gelehrt. Lex. ii, 1631. (J. H. W.)
Hobbs, Lewis, a Methodist Episcopal minister, born in Burke County, Ga., Feb. 1783 ; was converted in 1804, and entered the itinerancy in 1808. He was stationed in New Orleans in 1813, and died in Georgia in 1814. Sir. Hobbs was a young man of deep and uniform piety, great simplicity and zeal as a minister, and nobly en- dured the perils and hardships of missionary life in the Southern wildernesses and the poisonous climate of the Mississippi. — Minutes of Conferences, i, 254. (G. L. T.)